Alcohol abuse is a serious social, health, and moral problem. It disrupts families, ruins careers, destroys bodies, tears apart friendships, and leads to untold human misery. Statistics vary from year to year and from place to place, but in the United States alcohol misuse is involved in at least half of all fatal traffic accidents, fire deaths, drownings, arrests, murders, and incidents of child abuse and other violence in the home. Alcohol is involved in 41 percent of assaults, 34 percent of rapes, and 30 percent of suicides. The Department of Justice estimates that nearly one third of the nation's prison inmates drank heavily before committing the crimes that landed them in jail. A recent Gallup poll showed that one family in four is troubled by alcohol, a significant increase over previous surveys.
At present, about 10 million Americans and 600,000 Canadians are alcoholics. They come from every socioeconomic level, most ethnic groups, and almost every age group, including one in five teenagers and increasing numbers of elderly drinkers. Alcoholism is common among both men and women. It cripples individuals outside of the church as well as those inside, including evangelicals. It is a major killer, ranking third after heart disease and cancer. It results in twenty-five times more deaths than are claimed by cocaine, heroin, and other illegal drugs combined. The focus of a $1 billion alcoholism treatment industry, alcohol abuse costs the economy well over $100 billion a year in reduced work efficiency, absenteeism, property damage, treatment expenses, and premature deaths.
What Is an Alcoholic?
Even the experts disagree. Pioneer researcher E. M. Jellinek called alcoholism a disease. A recent Gallup poll found that 87 percent of those interviewed would agree, as would most counselors and physicians. According to one definition, alcoholism is a complex, chronic, progressive disease in which the use of alcohol increasingly interferes with one's health, social, and economic functioning. Others have challenged the disease concept, preferring instead to see alcoholism as a social phenomenon, a behavior disorder, or clear evidence of sin. "At the same time we say through our lips that alcoholism is a chronic disease," one physician told a Time reporter "many of us feel in our guts that it's a moral or self-inflicted problem.
The Bible and Alcoholism
The World Health Organization gives a definition that avoids any reference to disease or morality. According to WHO, alcoholics are "those excessive drinkers whose dependence on alcohol has attained such a degree that it shows a noticeable mental disturbance or an interference with their bodily or mental health, their inter-personal relations, and their smooth economic and social functioning." Although alcoholics differ in their symptoms and in the speed with which their condition develops, all show physical symptoms, psychological difficulties (including an obsessive desire to drink), and behavioral problems that disrupt one's social or work life.
Is Alcoholism a Sickness or a Sin?
This Question is not confined to Christians. Physicians and many insurance companies accept alcoholism as a disease because it is predictable, progressive, physiologically debilitating, and treatable. By calling alcoholism a disease, individuals are less likely to be condemned and more likely to get treatment that insurance companies will finance.
The disease concept tends to relieve the alcoholic of personal responsibility. At his perjury trial, a former White House aide argued that he was not guilty of illegal acts because he was suffering from the "disease" of alcoholism when he broke the law. Certainly it is true that some people are physiologically more prone to become alcoholics, but at some time every drinker makes the decision to take a first drink and, at least at the beginning, each person can decide whether to stop or continue. "The disease concept of alcoholism is out of tune with the facts and a serious obstacle to rational solutions," writes one psychiatrist in the British Medical Journal. "What determines whether a person becomes dependent on alcohol is how much he drinks and for how long, rather than his personality, psychodynamics, or biochemistry.
Alcoholism is a progressive addiction that engulfs its victim psychologically and physically, but alcoholism is also a moral condition for which the drinker is at least partially responsible. It is both simplistic and extreme to conclude that alcoholism is only a disease or only a black-and-white case of sin. In the lessons that follow, we will assume that alcoholism is both a sickness and a sin. Both are involved in the development of alcohol addiction; both must be considered a treatment.
Points of Interest
1. Statistics support the view that alcohol abuse is a serious social, health and moral problem that disrupts families, ruins careers, destroys bodies and tears apart friendships.
2. About 10 million Americans are alcoholics.
3. Alcoholics come from every socio-economic level.
4. Alcoholics come from most ethnic groups.
5. Alcoholism is prevalent among both men and women.
6. People of faith – especially Evangelicals – are not immune to alcoholism.
7. Alcoholism is the focus of a $1 billion alcoholism treatment industry.
8. Alcohol abuse costs the economy more than $100 billion a year in reduced work efficiency, absenteeism, property damage, treatment expenses and premature deaths.Alcoholism is both a sickness and a sin.
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